


the greatest social climber since cinderella

by anotherbuskitten



Category: Evita - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 03:42:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1330651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherbuskitten/pseuds/anotherbuskitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has an angel. Not every angel is happy to be there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the greatest social climber since cinderella

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this half-awake and watching the film with Madonna (which I love) so it might not be the most coherent.

Everyone has an angel. Not every angel is happy to be there.

-

_(It starts, as it always starts, at the end of the story.)_

An angel is sent to the end of someone’s life and then shown how they remembered getting there. The job was to make sure it happened that way.

Che was not happy to be out of a home. Hard as it was for him to keep his emotions locked away, Che had never spoken aloud his feelings for humanity.

He remembered Eva Duarte from his own life. He remembers the hope she had given him and the disappointment when she had failed him. By nature a bitter man, Che had not forgiven Eva for her lies, nor himself for his naivety.

* * *

He took a long, hard look at the parchment in front of him, then signed, hard black lines glowing once, before vanishing. He closed his eyes and reappeared in Argentina. His Argentina.

Her early years were not too different from his own; he passed through scenes with her mother, her siblings and, on occasion, her father.

When she was nine her father died and she wasn’t allowed to say goodbye. Personally he didn’t see what the fuss was about, just another dead body. But Che couldn’t really remember childhood or innocence or any of that.

The despair and anguish on her face was clear but he reminded himself of what she’d done, and of what she _hadn’t._

* * *

The next time he stopped and really paid attention she was in bed with a guy. Right, of course. This had been covered in her memories. Except from her point of view this had seemed like love.

Suddenly his own naivety didn’t seem so bad; he had just had hope. But Eva had fallen in love. Or she thought she had.

He helped the staff blackmail Magaldi but only to get Eva into Buenos Aries.

Her heartbroken face hadn’t affected him that time.

* * *

After that he had to watch her practically beg for affection. It was really quite pitiful that the people had let this wretch rise so high.

His people.

Him.

* * *

Che supposed, sometimes, that he should be slightly more willing to help his charge find her way. He could not be here just to watch history that he had already lived after all.

There must be some way he was helping. He was still here, wasn’t he?

But Che did not want to be here. Duarte was not a boring person but she was a woman. And a politician.

She was not a hero.

But perhaps he was here to make her one.

* * *

She isn’t easier to fall in love with now he’s seen her before Peron. He doesn’t see her as any better a person just because he can now see her mistakes. He can’t even truly say he likes Eva Duarte any more than he liked Eva Peron.

At the bar he tells her she’ll get by. It’s the first time he’s spoken to her in any lifetime, he wonders if she recognises him from the hotel or if his face has been changed for all this.

He thinks that for all her talk she probably doesn’t pay that much attention to the lower classes or anyone who can’t help her along.

When he says it he can’t help but let a little bitterness slip through.

* * *

She does land on her feet; finding a photographer and an editor and a thousand men to keep her going.

 _“You’re the same.”_ Any lingering doubts he may have had about her intentions has left. It is clear she will do anything and anyone to rise higher.

* * *

When the G.O.U invaded he had just started to get used to the way things were going; he was used to Eva’s ways, used to pushing the used men out of the picture. He had started to forget his own life so mixed up; he now was, in hers.

He watched it sometimes; slipping in and out of places with as little notice taken as though he were invisible. Mostly he stayed with Eva in case of his chance to change things turned up.

When he left, though, to watch the G.O.U and Peron he looked out for people he knew; it was easier than he expected to see them and not attempt to speak.

He remembered watching Peron help the lower classes as a youth and how easy it had been to believe he wanted the best for them. This time around all he could see were the smiles and nudges and condescending smirks. He saw Peron take advantage of tragedy and disaster to look good, he saw them ride over the destroyed city in shiny white autos not stopping to check if there were children or injured in his way.

Still, it was easy to see what the people had seen in him.

* * *

He gets another job at a classier club as an announcer and waits for April.

Peron’s speech is empty of emotion but full of what people want to hear. A few months ago it would have been what Eva wanted too.

Peron knows exactly what Eva’s game is; it is the same as his after all. The last thing she appears as is naïve.

At the start it is fairly clear he is talking of a _‘hurried night, a frantic tumble and a shy goodbye’_ but he quickly becomes as enthralled by her as all other men are.

He supposes that nothing she says at the beginning is true; he is only another step on her ladder but things will change. Peron is the top of the food chain.

He quits his job.

* * *

He flits on the side again; a waiter, a reporter, a nothing.

Eva made an excellent addition to the upper class.

In the start the army have the right idea about Eva but soon they meet her and fall. Just like all the others.

She and Peron fit together so easily; their dreams and hopes complimenting the other’s perfectly.

She doesn’t recognise him.

* * *

Somewhere along the way she becomes truly attached to Peron.

* * *

Sometimes he can still see pieces of little Eva Duarte in her. He wonders what her child self would think of her.

* * *

And then he gets swept up in Peron’s removal. Just like last time he finds it easy to fall for the lies Eva is spreading.

For the first time she is thinking of something other than herself. A pity it’s never the country.

* * *

Eva flourishes in strife: her voice gets louder and stronger, she stands straighter, she puts her mind (and he has never thought her stupid) to bigger things.

She is loved by so many.

He marches by her side and pretends he doesn’t know how this ends.

* * *

When Peron is released there is so much hope in the air.

Enough that the people are overflowing with ways to show their allegiance, enough that they almost forget when they are hurt.

He wins by a landslide.

* * *

For the first time he watches Eva remember who she used to be. It doesn’t change her; she is too far gone.

Up there full of confidence and love she is beautiful for the first time.

Her old friends; the ones who are still lagging in the gutters, they are the most hopeful of all.

It hurts him to relive all this.

* * *

The last few years have gone by so quickly; he has no idea how they came to be here.

He says it is a pity she has done everything so young but he remembers her death and knows it is not.

* * *

He goes back to reporting. Rome is fun.

He stays and plants doubts in everyone’s mind. It works perhaps a little too well.

* * *

The power of the people is a fading ideal.

When they stand at the doors of her enclosure and say all he has felt all along he can see her, for a second, recognise him as the clerk, waiter, cleaner, announcer, reporter, protestor who has followed her life before it fades.

Eva is all about the glitz and glamour of huge statements. She is justified for moments before needing a new stage.

She is loved again.

* * *

At one of her horse-and-pony shows he sees himself; younger, dancing, laughing, full of hope and joy.

When she falls he is too betrayed by her lies to feel anything but hate.

He collapses in the street and finally, finally talks to her. He doesn’t know how much of it is real but he is so happy to finally get it all out he does not care.

He is happy this nightmare is over at last. He will be happy to leave Argentina forever.

He is quick and rough and harsh with her and at times tender as any one of her fans.

She plays all her usual tricks and when that fails spits abuse at him.

* * *

And oh –

She believes she is helping, doesn’t she?

She believes she is still little Eva Duarte, still downtrodden and pushed aside. Still a little girl who is now allowed to say goodbye.

She believes she is helping.

He wonders if maybe he could have helped.

* * *

 

He doesn’t mourn.


End file.
